English words of American origin

Words of American origin, or Americanisms, are rather hard group to define. For the sake of sanity, the words listed below are generally words that were dragged into the English language by people living in what would become the area currently occupied by the USA, including a large number of Native American words. Some of these Americanisms have spread to become used across much of the English speaking world, but many of them are still largely limited to America.

These are arranged by the date they first appeared in print, so many were probably in use for at least a few years before the date given. Oh, and for anyone not American, I should mention that many words appear on this list that are no longer in common usage.

In addition to these, there are words that have been part of the English language for centuries, but started to fade out in England, only to be retained in America. Because of this, words such as 'mad' (to mean angry), 'overly', 'progress' (as a verb), 'kinfolk', 'sidewalk', 'notice' (as a verb), 'ass', 'sled', 'tardy', and 'reliable' may be said to be Americanisms. Other words are insufficiently documented to determine exactly when they started -- for example, 'hi' as a synonym for 'hello' is surely an Americanism, but it is not clearly documented when it moved from being a sound you yelled out to get attention to a simple greeting.

There are literally hundreds of Americanisms left of off this list. If I have forgotten your favorite, let me know and I will consider adding it.